A Fool's Hero
by Whyntir
Summary: Communism is at its end, America has won, and Russia gives up. But he has not gone without his one little piece of advice, the advice that can change the future of the world, or perhaps push it down the destructive path America has paved. Lang & ideology


**December 1****st****, 1991 – District of Columbia, Maryland

* * *

**

Alfred and Ivan sat across from each other. This was an informal meeting planned by his boss and he was not very happy right now. Why would America want to talk to this spawn of the devil! He watched him carefully, expecting some spy move like the KGB or something along those lines. Like using one of those fucking faucet pipes the bastard seemed to pull out of nowhere. He watched him carefully, his hand discreetly grasping the hilt of his MAC-10 as he watched for any strange or suspicious movements. Hey, when dealing with the heartless Commie, you had to have some heavy duty shit! Alfred could even suspect that a sub-machine gun wouldn't be enough to stop the behemoth.

Soviet Russia's eyes gleamed in amusement. He wondered what the American was up to, he appeared so tense and poised, like a rattling snake ready to attack. Look at him, the evil that made him, though not of the shores he now presided over, followed him where're he would go. He was born from it, bad blood as they would have said not too long ago in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was made of bad blood, he bred in bad blood, and he lived with it circulating through his veins. But something in the American wanted to make him fall to his knees and cry over the blonde's desolation as a preacher would weep over a dying infant in its last hours. What was that bad blood? Everyone knew its composition: Power, self-righteousness, insecurity, intolerance, and greed. There were more, but those stood out the most, in all with that black blood that would stain the earth before lighting the world in flames.

"How are you Alfred?" Ivan asked innocently enough. Alfred cocked an eyebrow in suspicion, watching the gloved hands placidly settle in a loose embrace of each other on the hickory table.

America raised one hand, the one not grasping the gun, and rested it on the wood, "I am fine, have been for the longest time now. How about you? Your commie government is falling apart I hear. How does it feel to have your little buddies you enslaved declaring independence of your tyranny."

"Yes, indeed," the sandy haired man nodded in depressed contemplation, "and I will not lie, I have felt much better in days past, specifically when Comrade Lenin was still alive. I miss my old friend dearly. Joseph was not a very well tempered man, he liked beating on me and he was very cruel to my sisters. But even then I felt better than I do now."

"Really?" Alfred asked, his tone harsh and clipped, but there was that inherited curiosity in his eyes. The curiosity of a child who wanted to know more, but this was something he might want to go on forever not knowing. Oh but he was dying, the Union was dying, the least he could do would be to pass on this bit of wisdom to the younger, then perhaps his eyes would open once he was gone. Then perhaps . . . no, he would fall, like Rome, like Greece, like Egypt, they all attained so much, but it was worth nothing in the end.

He nodded slowly, "I miss my sister, Ukraine. She hates me now you know, as though I had any power under Stalin or anything that has happened since. And Prussia loathes me, even though it was I who wanted to keep him alive. And I feel the blood returning, that blood that seems to stick to the walls of my veins and clog my arteries and organs with its waste. I feel the sludge of corruption in it, and the bile of lies that it spews into me. I feel the greed that is growing, and I feel the darkness returning. Capitalism is entering me, and I do not handle it easily. I am become used to the transition, but it will kill me, and another me will take my place. And after that . . . I do not know. I have documented everything that has occurred as an unbiased observer from 1924 to this very day. As such, he will know of the blood that infects him, and that runs through his veins . . . as it does you."

"What are you talking about!"

"You do not need blame yourself for the blood," Ivan waved off, looking out the window as though speaking to no one, "It has existed far longer than you have. China told me about it, as did France and Greece. This isn't so much of you, but what I must say is that you brought it back. Now it isn't a darkened red of blood, but it is nothing but heartless black. To us, it was nothing, but you were too young when you adopted it to ever realize that your blood thickened, that your lungs and heart are clogged with the evil that re-."

"Shut up!" Alfred shouted, drawing his gun, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You don't know anything about me! I have no clue what you're talking about! You have no idea-!"

"How is that cut Alfred? The one Vietnam graced you with. I know all about that."

* * *

_She panted heavily, the Naginata in her hands was stained in the blood of her brother who now lay bleeding onto the ground, his life leaving him but he wasn't dead yet. Her dark eyes gazed wildly at him from under the straw hat, the blood on the weapon's blade looked black until the sun hit it just right, revealing the tint of red. Alfred stood by in a combat position, though his military uniform was torn and riddled with bullets, his face was red from the rush, his chest hurt, his lungs burned. This was his last stand, the deciding point on whether he returned home in victory or in shameful defeat._

"_Why would you do this Lan!" he shouted dodging her as she lunged with a feral screech. The remains of his right sleeve were cut off, but she missed his tanned, muscle toned skin._

_She swung the long handle with a great force, impacting him hard in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him, before he hit the ground, barely dodging the naginata's blade. She twirled the spear deftly and slammed it down, hoping to pierce through his chest plate. Once more, he rolled out of the way and to his feet. "I did it because of you! I hate you! I hate all you white demons! I thought you would understand! I thought you would get it! But no," she pounded into the forest's floor with an aggressiveness he had never seen in her, "you're just like them! You evil, wicked, selfish man!"_

"_But communism doesn't have to-."_

"_You don't get it!" she screamed as a banshee, her voice breaking at the end by the sheer pitch, "You made me this. You gave me no other choice, and I know about that deal you made with France. I'm not doing it! I'm not going back! You'll have to kill me first!" She charged again, her weapon poised for his weak belly where no skeletal structures protected his intestines. He sidestepped at the last moment, only to be caught off guard by the sudden twist of her wrist. Lucky for him the position she had originally had kept the narrow blade from embedding itself in his abdomen, but its thin tip sliced across his flesh. He exclaimed in pain, the wound going deeper than it looked, but not to the point that it would quickly kill a normal man. He fell to the ground, his hand clenching the area of the injury. Vietnam was too preoccupied to kill him for good. Her deep brown eyes stared in horror at the edge of her naginata, the blade stained in such a deep black that the glare reflected off white._

_She threw down the weapon, "Russia was right, he told me all about this. He was right! You are demons! Get out of here, get out of my lands you monster!" And she disappeared, her brother deceased on the forest floor. Alfred stood his legs shaky under him. Black blood coated his hand.

* * *

_

Alfred sat alone in the dark of his basement, the lights out and the heavy smell of tainted blood. "I'll show him," he muttered to himself, "I'll show him that he's wrong. I'll show him." The sentence repeated itself in the dark, his voice becoming fainter as the world was consumed in the darkness of his blood.

* * *

Then the day came when it ruptured into flames. He couldn't prove him wrong in the end.


End file.
